Obama: Grew Up with “the Bible and the Koran”

The Faith of Barack Obama written by New York Times
best-selling author Stephen Mansfield was released in August by
Thomas Nelson publishers. The book carries the endorsement of

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the front cover. Tutu, one of the
global “Elders,” calls the book “perceptive and well-written.”
The publisher’s description of the book reads:

“…takes readers inside the mind, heart, and soul of
presidential hopeful Barack Obama–as a person of faith,
as a man, as an American, and possibly as our future
commander in chief.”

Mansfield, says: “If a man’s faith is sincere, it is the most
important thing about him, and it is impossible to understand
who he is and how he will lead without first understanding the
religious vision that informs his life.”

According to Mansfield, Obama is “raising the banner of what he
hopes will be the faith-based politics of a new generation . . .
and he will carry that banner to whatever heights of power his
God and the American people allow.”

Recently, when Obama was interviewed by Rick Warren, Obama told
Warren that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. Yet this
“banner” Obama raises is one that has an inter-spiritual
foundation, representing a new kind of “Christianity,” one that
looks more like Brian McLaren’s spirituality than traditional,
biblical Christianity.

What emerges from this book is a glimpse of a man who has New
Age philosophy, believing that other religions are legitimate
paths to God, and all humanity is connected together
(spiritually speaking – i.e., God is in all):

“Obama does clearly believe that the form of Christianity
that he committed to at Trinity Church in 1985 is not
the only path to God. ‘I am rooted in the Christian
tradition,’ he has said. Nevertheless he asserts, ‘I
believe there are many paths to the same place and that
is a belief there is a higher power, a belief that we
are connected as a people.’

“He first saw his
broad embrace of faith modeled by his mother. ‘In our
household,” he has explained, ‘The Bible, [t]he Koran,
and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf … on Easter
or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to a church,
just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the
Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and
ancient Hawaiian burial sites.'” (p.55 of Mansfield’s
book, quoting from Audacity of Hope, Obama, p.
203).

After his inter-spiritually-based upbringing, Obama later
spent twenty years in a church, which promotes the panenthestic
(God in all), inter-spiritual approach. In a 2006 article in


United Church News, Obama stated that the teachings of
the UCC (United Church of Christ), of which he was a member
(Trinity United Church of Christ) until recently, are
“foundation stones for his political work.” Just what are those
“teachings” comprised of? On Trinity’s website, on the

Yoga page, the following statement is highlighted:

“Within each [of] us is the seed of Divinity. Each Soul
is divine. I bow to the divinity in us all!”

This is classic Hinduism that teaches that divinity resides
in every human being. It is also the message of the New Age
movement — man’s divinity!

In Obama’s own autobiography, Audacity of Hope, he calls
himself a “progressive” (i.e., emerging or postmodern) and says:
“We need to take faith seriously not simply to block the
religious right but to engage all persons of faith in the larger
project of American renewal” (p. 216). Echoing the sentiments of
Rick Warren (a close friend of Obama, says Warren), he clarifies
that partnerships between “religious and secular” will have to
be built, and “each side will need to accept some ground rules
for collaboration” (p. 216). He adds:

“Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian
nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a
Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of
nonbelievers.” (p. 218)

Obama insists that to base national “policy” on biblical
truths “would be a dangerous thing” to do (p. 220).

There is one sentence in Audacity of Hope that sums up
Barack Obama’s spirituality. He states:

“When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it
is not a static (stable) text but the Living Word and
that I must be continually open to new revelations.” (p.
224)

In other words, just as Tony Jones said in his book


The New Christians, and just as other emergents
consistently say, the truths in the written Word of God, the
Bible, are not unchanging and cannot be looked
upon as stable or immoveable. “New revelations” can bring about
new “truths” . . . truth is fluid.

To be interspiritual (all paths lead to God), to be
panentheistic (divinity is in all), to reject God’s Word, and to
embrace mysticism is to be what
Alice Bailey called a
rejuvenated Christian, who is one who follows “another
gospel” and “another Jesus” (II Corinthians 11:4).

“Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'”

(John
14:6)

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For related information:

Donald Miller, the Emerging Church, and the Democratic National
Convention

Obama Wows Iowa Meditators

Meditation: The heartbeat of a new kind of politics

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Read the
entire newsletter at Lighthouse Trails:

www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletter090308.htm

See also


Donald Miller, the Emerging Church, and the
Democratic National Convention

 

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www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com:

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